This post about snow led to Jennifer R. sending me this question…
I read your piece about the places you've been where it snowed. I'm always curious about how much people have traveled. How about writing a post for the blog which lists all the states you've lived in, all the states you've visited a lot and all the states you've visited at all? I'd also be interested in hearing your travel plans for 2024.
Sure…but as you'll see, I am not a well-traveled individual. I like being certain places for certain reasons but I've never been one of those people who yearns to travel just for the sake of being somewhere I've never been before. Because of my numerous food allergies, I'm leery about new restaurants and while I have no fear of flying, I don't like sitting in a car or on a plane for very long. Here's a map…
The orange shows you the state where I was born and all the different states in which I've lived. As you can see, that's just one state. The green identifies the states I've visited more than ten times. And the yellow indicates all the other states I've visited. I'm not counting states in which I spent some time in an airport while changing planes.
I have nothing against the states I've never visited. They're all probably wonderful in their own way. I just never go anywhere unless I have a reason and I've never had a reason to go to these states.
The map doesn't tell you this but I've also never been to Alaska, Hawaii or Mexico. I have been to Victoria on Vancouver Island (twice) and Calgary in Canada (once) and the District of Columbia (once) and nowhere else. That's right: I've been totally faithful to one continent. Never been to Asia, Africa, Europe, South America, Australia or Antarctica. I've turned down invites to conventions in most of these and shall continue to do so.
A few of the states in yellow are states I only visited to be a guest at a comic book convention. That means I saw the airport, a hotel, a convention center if the con wasn't in the hotel, a couple of nearby restaurants and whatever streets I had to travel on to get between these places. So I didn't really see much of those states.
I would not expect my reticence to travel to change. COVID and some knee problems have made me more comfy than ever staying home. The outta-state place I am most likely to visit is New York City, which I have not set foot in since 2018 when Amber and I took an 11-day expedition to Vegas, Philadelphia and Manhattan. It was fun — you can read about it here — but I don't see myself ever attempting a trip like that again.
Amber wants to go back to New York in the coming year and we'll probably do that if my knees allow. Other than that, it'll just be WonderCon Anaheim and Comic-Con International in San Diego.
